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THE BAR IN THE WAR-ITS WAR COMMITTEES AND 

ITS PARTICIPATION IN THE ENFORCEMENT 

OF THE SELECTIVE SERVICE LAW 

AND REGULATIONS 

PRESENTED AT THE 
FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE 

New York State Bar Association 

HELD AT NEW YORK, ON THE 
11th and 12th OF JANUARY, 1918 

By HENRY W. TAFT 



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THE BAR IN THE WAR - ITS WAR COMMITTEES AND 

ITS PARTICIPATION IN THE ENFORCEMENT 

OF THE SELECTIVE SERVICE LAW 

AND REGULATIONS 



When this country became involved in the European 
War, bar associations throughout the country formed 
committees to organize war work in which members of 
the bar might be useful. In the City of New York, the 
Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the New 
York County Lawyers' Association, the Brooklyn Bar 
Association, the Association of the Bar of the County of 
the Bronx, the Queens County Bar Association, the Rich- 
mond County Bar Association and the Lawyers' Club, 
each appointed a War Committee. These Committees 
announced that their purpose was to consider how mem- 
bers of the associations they represented might render 
assistance to the Government, to the State, and to the 
City, and might also extend aid to members of the legal 
profession serving with the land and naval forces of the 
country, and their dependents. For the purpose of avoid- 
ing duplication of labor and expense and of securing 
efficiency, these Committees were on May 2, 1917, amal- 
gamated and there resulted the War Committee of the 
Bar of the City of New York which has since, in a variety 
of ways, made itself useml in connection with war work. 

The War Committee first sought to marshal the 
resources of the bar of New York City by addressing a 
circular letter to its 14,000 members, inviting their 
co-operation and requesting them to give information 



which would aid the Committee in organizing the work. 
Responses were received from nearly 4,000 lawyers and 
information was thus obtained which, on being classified 
and card catalogued, has enabled the Committee to call to 
its assistance members of the bar as occasion has arisen. 

It has been an important part of the work of the 
Committee to give to enlisted men and their depend- 
ents gratuitous advice concerning their personal affairs 
before they leave the country. This work has included 
the settlement of claims growing out of contro- 
versies over leases and other contracts, the drawing of 
wills, trust deeds and other papers, advice with reference 
to real estate, life insurance and partnership matters, and 
concerning the adjustment of domestic difficulties of a 
variety of kinds and the right of municipal employees to 
receive a portion of their salaries after entering the mili- 
tary service. This work has been dealt with under the 
direction of a subcommittee by a force of volunteer law- 
yers who have been pretty continuously engaged upon it. 
The Committee has not undertaken to conduct lengthy 
litigations or otherwise to perform legal services which 
promised to be protracted, and especially where the finan- 
cial condition of applicants has made it suitable that they 
should employ their own lawyers and pay for their ser- 
vices. It has rather devoted itself to settling the exigent 
affairs of men called into the service, by giving them 
reliable, prompt and gratuitous legal assistance. In order 
that enlisted men should know what the Committee 
offered to do, notices have been inserted in the newspapers 
and have been posted in armories, camps and other places 
where they would attract attention. 

The Committee proposes to enter upon relief work, but 
happily this has not yet proved to be necessary. It as 



3 

known, however, that a substantial number of lawyers 
have entered the military service, and it is quite probable 
that they and their dependents will some time require 
assistance. We are considering ways and means for rais- 
ing a considerable sum of money to afford relief when the 
occasion arises. The distress among the professional 
classes in England and France has been widespread and 
severe, and organizations for their relief have found much 
to do in those countries. 

At the outset it was thought that provision could be 
made for the care of the business of lawyers called to the 
front. Indeed, that part of the proposed work attracted 
more attention than any other. It had a sentimental 
aspect, since an organization for such work implied not 
alone patriotism and self-sacrifice on the part of the law- 
yers remaining at home but also a certain commendable 
comradeship among members of the profession. From 
all parts of the country inquiries were received as to the 
manner in which it was proposed that the business of law- 
yers entering the army should be conserved. The expec- 
tation, however, that this part of the work would require 
serious attention has not been realized. With one or two 
negligible exceptions, no applications have been made to 
the Committee for its assistance. The difficulty about 
conserving the practice of absent lawyers (apart from the 
reluctance of clients temporarily, at the instance of an out- 
side agency, to put their affairs in the hands of other law- 
yers), is the fact that lawyers who have any business worth 
preserving have, without the intervention of the Com- 
mittee, made private arrangements with fellow members 
of the bar: Especially is this so with the older lawyers 
who have become officers in the military service ; and the 
younger lawyers within the draft age are generally law 



clerks, or, if they have an independent practice, it is more 
or less spasmodic and accidental, and cannot be anticipated 
or provided for. In England the conditions are quite dif- 
ferent, and in some cases it has been found quite prac- 
ticable to conserve the business of barristers going to the 
front ; but in this country provision of that kind does not 
seem to be practicable. 

The War Committee on its organization made a written 
tender to numerous officers of the Federal, State and 
Municipal governments of its co-operation in connection 
with any war work in which legal ability and experience 
might be useful. This tender has been availed of with 
frequency, and the Committee has been able to procure 
and organize for the Government the gratuitous services 
of many lawyers in a variety of ways. 

It selected and recommended to the United States 
Attorney for the Southern District of New York, twenty- 
five lawyers to investigate evasions of the draft, applica- 
tions by alien enemies for permits and suspicious cases of 
a variety of kinds requiring the confidential co-operation 
of reliable assistants. The War Committee aided the 
Director of the State Military Census, advised him as to 
his powers and prepared the forms for use in the adminis- 
tration of the law. At the request of the Mayors' Com- 
mittee on National Defense, it obtained the gratuitous 
services of about forty lawyers who under the first draft 
aided in organizing, and at the outset in advising, the Local 
Exemption Boards. At the request of the Adjutant 
General, the Committee recommended 189 carefully selected 
lawyers who acted in the first draft as the representatives 
of the Provost Marshal General in the Local Exemption 
Districts in the City of New York, and an additional num- 
ber of lawyers who performed similar work before the Dis- 



trict Board for that city, aiding that Broad in the decision 
on appeal of upwards of 40,000 cases. 

It is now well known to members of the profession that 
the new Selective Service Regulations of the War Depart- 
ment and the Questionnaires provided for thereunder, 
were of such a complicated character that the Govern- 
ment wisely determined that success in classifying the 
remaining registrants under the Selective Service Law, 
would necessitate the co-operation of the entire bar of the 
country in aiding the registrants in filling out their Ques- 
tionnaires and in advising them as to their rights. 

In the first draft about one million out of the aggregate 
number of nearly ten millions of registrants were called, 
and between 600,000 and 700,000 were inducted into the 
army. Difficulties were experienced, however, in proceed- 
ing in this manner, and it was decided by the War Depart- 
ment that the entire body of registrants who had not been 
inducted should be classified in the order in which they 
were to be selected for service in the army; and that thus, 
by a single operation the Government should obtain all of 
the information which would enable it to make an army 
and at the same time make provisions for the industrial 
needs of the country. The President in his Foreword to 
the Regulations said : " We must make a complete inven- 
tory of the qualifications of all registrants in order to 
determine, as to each man not already selected for duty 
with the colors, the place in the military, industrial or agri- 
cultural ranks of the nation in which his experience and 
training can best be made to serve the common good. This 
project involves an inquiry by Selection Boards into the 
domestic, industrial and educational qualifications of nearly 
ten million men." 



The general plan seems to have been in part based on 
the successive steps taken by England which ultimately 
developed into the present Conscription Act. After an 
effort to raise an army by voluntary enlistment had proved 
to be unsatisfactory, the British Parliament in July, 191 5, 
passed the National Registration Act, which was designed 
to ascertain in districts the supply of different classes of 
labor and of men of military age. This registration proved 
to be very useful in Lord Derby's effort to raise an army 
by voluntary enlistment, but an army of sufficient size 
could not be raised in that way within the limited time at 
hand; and there followed in January, 191 6, the first Mili- 
tary Service Act which applied to unmarried men, and 
widowers without children dependent upon them, who were 
from eighteen to forty-one years of age. Many of the 
features of our own Selective Service Law, including those 
relating to immunity from conscription on account of 
employment in industrial occupation which, in the 
national interest, it was of importance not to interrupt, or 
of the dependency of relatives who would become a public 
charge if deprived of support, were in some form contained 
in this law; and provision was made for Local Tribunals 
like our Local Exemption Boards, as well as for a system 
of appeals. This Act also proved to be inadequate, and in 
May, 1916, the Second Military Service Act was passed, 
which included within its provisions every male British 
subject between the ages of eighteen and forty, and all 
men thirty days after they became eighteen. The Act 
extended the time of the men then in the service and 
recalled all the time-expired men under forty-one. 

It is thus evident that Great Britain arrived at a complete 
scheme of conscription only by passing through a number 



of experimental stages. This progressive development 
has undoubtedly been of great value to our Government 
and has saved us much discussion and probably many dif- 
ficulties which the prompt passage of the Selective Service 
Law and adoption of the Regulation have avoided. To 
some extent, however, the first draft in this country was 
experimental — or at least it suggested that methods might 
be adopted which would be more comprehensive and thor- 
ough; and accordingly a system was devised which, by a 
single process, sought to classify the entire body of regis- 
trants and enable the Government with certainty to ascer- 
tain the extent and the character of the military resources 
of the country so far as they were dependent upon men 
between the ages covered by the law.. As the Provost 
Marshal General announced, the design of the new Regu- 
lations without the " haste and confusion " necessary under 
the first draft was to take from each community " only 
those who can be spared with the least possible interference 
with the domestic and economic life of the community " 
while the nation was at the same time enabled to meet 
at home " problems of industrial, agricultural and eco- 
nomic conservation with which we are bound to be 
confronted." The elaborate system which was resorted to 
was no doubt necessary to accomplish these results, and 
we have no hesitation in saying that the Regulations 
through which the system is being carried into effect, in its 
general plan, in the completeness of detail and in the pre- 
vision which marks the manner in which it deals with 
new and anomalous conditions, is a very creditable, if not 
a very remarkable, piece of legislation. The Regulations 
are necessarily voluminous and complicated, and, without 
a knowledge of their provisions the Questionnaire, on the 
answers to which the entire classification is based, is, even 



8 

to a lawyer, somewhat confusing, Even under the first 
draft one of the chief sources of difficulty came from the 
mistakes of registrants from their ignorance of their rights 
and duties under the law; and the embarrassment from the 
same cause became greatly increased by the more compre- 
hensive and permanent character of the new Regulations; 
indeed, it made, in the words of the Provost Marshal 
General, the creation of Legal Advisory Boards to assist 
registrants in correctly answering the Questionnaires " one 
of the most vital necessities of the new system." 

The opportunity thus afforded by the Regulations for the 
participation by the legal profession in the the enormously 
important work of raising the National Army is an event of 
no small importance in the history of the bar. In transmit- 
ting the Regulations to the Governors of the several States, 
and requesting the co-operation of the State and local gov- 
ernments in carrying the plan of the Selective Service Law 
and Regulations to a successful consummation, the Provost 
Marshal General stated that it was contemplated that it 
would be necessary to create an organization in each State 
Which would absorb all members of the legal profession 
and " assign to each a definite place and duty in the win- 
ning of this war." He added: 

" We have not yet given the legal profession a defi- 
nite place in the organized ranks of the nation, and 
what is here proposed offers a chance that should be 
welcomed enthusiastically by every lawyer in particu- 
lar and by the whole legal profession * * * 

No more important post could be offered a lawyer 
at this time than the active duty of assisting in the rais- 
ing of our armies and in this way can be provided a 
very necessary auxiliary of the Selective Service sys- 
tem without making any demand on the time of any 
lawyer to which any patriotic citizen would hesitate to 
respond." 



And the President in his Foreword to the Regulations 

themselves, said : 

" I urge men of the legal profession to offer them- 
selves as Associate Members of the Legal Advisory 
Boards to be provided in each community for the pur- 
pose of advising registrants of their rights and obliga- 
tions and of assisting them in the preparation of their 
answers to the questions which all men subject to the 
draft are required to submit." 

In line with this suggestion, in section 30 of the Regula- 
tions, it is further stated : 

" It should be the pride of every lawyer that no reg- 
istrant within his district is without competent legal 
advice and assistance in preparing all papers that such 
registrant is required to submit in the process of the 
selection of citizens of this nation for duty in the pres- 
ent emergency." 

And by section 46 it is asserted that it is inconsistent 
with the duty imposed upon members of the Legal 
Advisory Boards " to seek clients for the purpose of urging 

and advocating individual cases in any other way than as 
disinterested and impartial assistants of the Selective Ser- 
vice system," while by the same section, lawyers are urged 
" freely and without compensation to give their best service 
to the Nation." 

The duty of Legal Advisory Boards extends to advising 
as to the true meaning and intent of the Law and Regula- 
tions, of assisting registrants in making answers to the 
Questionnaire, and in aiding " generally in the just admin- 
istration of said law and Regulations." There is thus im- 
posed upon members of the bar a most important and a 
most delicate duty. It does not create precisely the relation 
of lawyer and client, but the service bears more resem- 



\() 

blance to the judicial function, while it is in important 
features administrative. No member of the Legal Advisory 
Board in advising a registrant is to forget the duty he 
owes to the country to administer the Law and the Regula- 
tions according to their true intent and meaning for the 
purpose of raising an army; nor, on the other hand, should 
he forget the vital interests of the registrant who is called 
upon to sacrifice his personal comfort, his property inter- 
ests, and perhaps his life. 

The duty which the bar at large was called upon to per- 
form called not alone for strenuous effort and the setting 
aside of convenience and business engagements, but also for 
the performance of high and patriotic duties. The call of 
the President was responded to with patriotic zeal. The 
bar as a unit sprang to the assistance of the National 
Government, and the manner in which the service was per- 
formed should tend to remove prejudice which sometimes 
has existed concerning the useful function of the lawyer in 
our system of government. 

The Regulations provided for the appointment of Legal 
Advisory Boards of three Permanent Members in 
such districts as might be created by the Governor of each 
state. Members were also to be appointed in such num- 
bers as might be necessary to provide adequate assistance. 
Outside of the Greater City of New York, Governor 
Whitman constituted each County of the State (with one 
or two minor exceptions) a single district within which 
a Legal Advisory Board was to be appointed ; but he made 
the Greater City of New York a single district, and 
appointed one Board of three Permanent Members to 
organize the lawyers of the city. That Board subdivided 
the work among the five boroughs composing the 






1 1 

municipality, and appointed in each of the boroughs an 
Auxiliary Legal Advisory Board of three Associate Mem- 
bers. Each borough was in turn divided into subdistricts 
corresponding to the Local Exemption Districts under 
the jurisdiction' of the Local Exemption Boards, and a 
Legal Advisory Board of three Associate Members, known 
by the name of a Local Law Board, was set up in each 
Exemption District. There was thus constituted a skele- 
ton organization composed of nearly 600 lawyers. But, 
as there were about 540,000 registrants in New York 
City who would be required to respond to the Question- 
naire, it was decided from an estimate of the average time 
which would be occupied in filling in the, Questionnaire of 
each registrant and otherwise advising him, that there would 
be required not less than 3,000 lawyers. Accordingly, pro- 
vision was made for the appointment of an additional 
number of Associate Members to be assigned to the Local 
Law Boards in the several districts in such numbers as it 
was thought they might be required. Local Law Boards 
in each district were required to determine the numbers 
of additional Associate Members that were necessary and 
upon their recommendation such members in large numbers 
have been appointed. 

There have been formally designated in the city of 
New York by the Permanent Members of the Legal 
Advisory Board, nearly 3,000 lawyers, all of whom have 
taken the oath of office required under the provisions of 
the Regulations and have, since the Regulations went into 
effect, been actively employed in the performance of their 
duties. The War Committee of the Bar rendered active 
assistance in the selection of Associate Members of the 
Legal Advisory Board, and in its initial stages acted as 
the unofficial agency by which the Legal Advisory Board 



12 

has been able to erect the organization above described. 
When the organization was complete offices were estab- 
lished. An extensive central office organization became nec- 
essary and was established in the Hall of Records Building 
in the city of New York, in rooms furnished by the city. 
In each of the boroughs also it has been necessary to 
maintain a permanent office organization, since the mag- 
nitude of the work and the necessity that it be done with 
thoroughness and uniformity throughout the city required 
that it be directed through the intermediate agency of the 
Auxiliary Boards in the several boroughs. In maintaining 
the several central offices a large expense has been incurred 
for clerical assistance, printing, and other office expenses. 
No appropriation was made by the Law or the Regulations 
for such expense and it has been borne entirely by volun- 
tary subscriptions by lawyers of the city, collected through 
the agency of the War Committee. 

The service of the bar called for by the Regulations was 
to be nation-wide. A copy of the Questionnaire, the letter 
of General Crowder to the Governors of the several States, 
and the Foreword of the President, was sent to each of the 
11,000 members of the American Bar Association; and in 
section 30 of the Regulations it was stated that for assist- 
ance of the Governor of each State he was to have the 
active co-operation and assistance of the American Bar 
Association. It was suggested in the Regulations that the 
Advisory Board in each district should be presided over 
either by the county judge or a judicial officer having a 
similar jurisdiction. This suggestion has generally been 
adopted and throughout this State the work has been organ- 
ized by the county judges, calling together the lawyers of 
the several counties and organizing the entire bar to assist. 
In New York City this procedure was not practicable be- 



13 

cause the number of judges was insufficient to equip the 
local districts, and, furthermore, they would have been 
unable to spare the time from their judicial duties for the 
performance of the work. The judiciary of each borough, 
was, however, consulted in the selection of Auxiliary 
Boards; and the importance of the work was quickly recog- 
nized by the courts, the Appellate Divisions in the First and 
the Second Departments making a rule that engagement of 
counsel in work under the Selective Service Regulations 
was to be accepted as an excuse for the adjournment of 
cases in all the courts. We have been informed that in 
some of the States the work occupied so much of the time 
of the lawyers that the courts were adjourned for consider- 
able periods of time. 

It is not possible at this time to give definite information 
as to the percentage of registrants who availed of the ser- 
vices of the Legal Advisory Boards. Since they were con- 
stituted under the Regulations and had their official status 
confirmed by an oath of office taken as officers of the 
Federal Government, it is, perhaps, not unnatural that 
among the ignorant and the suspicious, misrepresentations 
should have been made and feelings of antagonism engen- 
dered, which have united to prevent some registrants from 
availing of the services of the Boards lest they should be 
used as instruments of the Government to induct registrants 
into the army, even though they might be entitled to 
deferred classification or even to exemption. The Govern- 
ment, however, wisely insisted that the law should be 
administered through local agencies and with reference to 
the character, occupation and susceptibilities of localities; 
and the justice with which, in the main, the Regulations 
have been enforced by the neighbors of the registrants 
themselves, has tended to dissipate the misunderstanding 



14 

and prejudice. To some extent no doubt the propaganda of 
our enemies invaded the local Exemption Districts and 
sought to reduce the efficiency of the Selective Service sys- 
tem. The foresight of the Government, however, and the 
experience of the Local Boards and the co-operation of 
the Legal Advisory Boards, reduced to a minimum the dan- 
ger of such interference, and up to the present time the 
classification provided for in the Regulations has been a 
most gratifying success. 

Henry W. Taft 



MINUTE CONCERNING WAR 

At the close of the reading of the foregoing paper, Henry 
W. Taft presented the following minute, which was 
unanimously adopted by the Association : 

" The New York State Bar Association affirms its 
unwavering loyalty to the Nation and pledges the 
united support of the bar of the State to the Govern- 
ment of the United States in the vigorous prosecution 
of the war. We rejoice that the legal profession has 
been called upon by the President to give its aid in an 
important way in the classification of our citizens who 
are to compose our Army. We take pride in the 
patriotic and zealous manner in which this duty has 
been performed; for we believe that the raising and 
equipment and transportation of our military forces, 
should be the chief concern of every true American 
citizen, in accordance with his opportunity and to the 
extent of his ability. 



15 

While criticism of such preparation, if based on a 
patriotic desire for the effective prosecution of the 
war, should not be discouraged and is sometimes help- 
ful, we denounce opposition springing from political 
motives, indifferent patriotism, or downright dis- 
loyalty. We suffer with scant patience assertions of 
the sanctity of free speech from those who oppose the 
war on narrow and technical views of our rights under 
International Law. The country has no time to listen 
to the subtle distinctions of men whose speech gives 
aid and comfort to the enemy. If such contentions do 
not conceal hurtful and disloyal propaganda, at least 
they hamper the Government in the speed and effective- 
ness of war preparations. 

We have an abiding belief in the justice of our 
cause. In disregard of International Law, and against 
our solemn and repeated warnings, Germany persisted 
in an inhuman submarine warfare; and when American 
lives were lost there was no recourse but war. But 
reparation for loss of life is not the sole purpose of the 
war, for the defeat of the Central Pow r ers is necessary 
if civil liberty is to be preserved throughout the world. 
The German conception of the state is based upon an 
inexorable philosophy w r hich demands, and cannot exist 
without, an autocratic government, and that in turn 
would fail if it were not sustained by military force at 
home and by implacable methods of warfare abroad. 
It is a philosophy which exalts the idea of force and 
would transmute the world into an armed camp, and 
the arts, the sciences, the humanities and religion, 
would stand still or retrograde while the nations of 
the earth were engaged in a struggle for self- 
preservation." 



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